There’s no Black Ops, Yeah Nobody’s Reading Your Mail

I can’t remember what I came here to say. Just that I wanted to write something. Because it’s the end of the day. Because these next few weeks are going to be difficult. Because the last few weeks have been difficult. Because I’m telling myself I have nothing to complain about. But I do. Because anyone can engage in comparative anguish and come out feeling not-so-anguished…but sometimes it’s important to feel the anguish. Just a little. Not too much.

Did I ever tell you about the time that I declared the word “Bitch” a forbidden word in this house.

My eldest son must have been around 7 or 8.

So, when he would get mad at me, he would say “You are a FORBIDDEN WORD!!!”

For the next week, their preparations followed a similar pattern — when they entered Snowden’s room, they would remove their cellphone batteries and place them in the refrigerator of Snowden’s minibar. They lined pillows against the door, to discourage eavesdropping from outside, then Poitras set up her camera and filmed. It was important to Snowden to explain to them how the government’s intelligence machinery worked because he feared that he could be arrested at any time.